Thoughts about App.net

I’m sure you have heard of App.net by now. The paid, non-advertisement-supported “live social stream” (read: Twitter). They set a $500,000 goal, and raised more than $800,000 – a clear indicator that some level of demand is there for such a service.

There are two levels of membership, the $50 “User” level and the $100 “Developer” level. A developer account will give you the necessary API keys to build apps that connect to App.net. I was very interested in how these prices were chosen, and thankfully App.net published their logic (“How did you come up with the pricing tiers?” in the FAQ).

I agree with Marco Arment that $50 a year is too expensive for regular users, but he didn’t have anything to say about the developer tier. Here’s an excerpt from the FAQ that irks me:

The developer price is inspired by the amount charged by the Apple Developer Program, $99. We think this demonstrates that developers are willing to pay for access to a high quality development platform.

The decision using the Apple iOS Developer Program as inspiration for the App.net developer tier is, I believe, fundamentally flawed – there are too many differences and not enough parallels:

The iOS Developer Program includes hosting of your app.

The iOS Developer Program introduces your app to all iOS users

Et cetera..

For App.net to convincingly (using their present argument) charge $99 for their developer tier, I believe that the following services are necessary:

A much larger user base – there were approximately 8,000 “User” tier backers. At $1.99 (revenue of $1.40) of 20% of these users, you can expect $2,240 of gross income. With over 2,000 registered developer accounts, 20% is extremely optimistic.

Of course, if you believe that App.net will balloon, the developer tier is moderately priced. Otherwise, it’s just another lucrative investment.